Exciting Pariah Things

4:40 PM

This is a very special post (for me, at least) because today, I am going to talk about my baby.

I do believe I've acquired a few followers -- hullo, new people! -- since the last time I talked about this. Pariah is one of many stories floating around in my brain, but it is also the special one. I'm almost two years, six drafts, and a lot of heartbreak + insanity into this novel and it is kind of my baby now, so forgive me if I start wailing and collapsing on the floor at the mere mention of the thing. It's a YA steampunk murder mystery thingy; full of things like Cockney accents, mute assassins and their less-mute sniper friends, mechanikal dragons, brass horses, overconfident mixed-race street thief girls, society girls who are into politics, murder, death, and so on. Below is a pretty collage thing I made, to capture the aesthetic of the story. (You can click on it to make it bigger, look at that!)

I'm rather proud of myself for this, yes. All lovely pictures are from
Pinterest, and definitely don't belong to me.

You can read more about Pariah here, or visit the "What I'm Writing" tab up there at the top of the blog, but I'm going to jump right into today and offer up some looks at Draft 6. Which is, by the way, no means perfect even though I sometimes like to pretend that it is and, as I discovered just a few days ago, needs many edits.

That's it. That's editing.

This is a very random post. There's not much structure to it, just me rambling about this weird steampunk thing that's come out of my brain. First, I shall introduce you to:

A Brief History of Pariah (as illustrated by GIFs)

Draft One: The 'I Literally Just Made It Up As I Went' Draft

Full disclosure: Pariah is the result of one of those writing prompt thingies where you take inspiration from things around you and make a plot+characters around it. Long story short, this novel came from a mix of Despicable Me 2, a shampoo bottle, The Hunger Games, and numerous baby name websites. I'm not even joking. Also, it was pretty dystopian, and I had no plot.

I had no idea what I was writing, but it was fun.

Draft Two: The 'Editing Is Easy, Right??? ...right?' Draft

Poor, innocent me, who thought this was all the editing I would have to do before I would be finished.

Draft Three: The 'Everything Actually Sucks Oh Gosh' Draft

Update: This is not all the editing I'll have to do before I finish. Also, the characters have personalities now. And I'm becoming more aware of the writing process and the writing world asdfghjkl. On the bright side, this is now steampunk, and I'm cool with that.

Draft Four: The 'Now There is Actually Murder What Is Going On' Draft

THE PLOT IS CHANGING. NOTHING IS OKAY. I AM ACTUALLY DYING BUT THERE IS MURDER AND THAT IS VERY COOL. BUT SO MUCH REWRITING.

Draft Five: The 'My Eyes Are Bleeding I Hate This So Much' Draft

No one is cooperating. Plot holes everywhere. I hate everything and my family has not seen me for at least three months.

Draft Six: The 'Why' Draft

What even is life now. I have been living in the Pariah cave for what feels like forever and there are still issues. I am so very, very done, but also excited because IT IS SLOWLY IMPROVING. Peppermint tea, blankets, and reruns of Falling Skies are now my best friends.

Sadness and angst.

In other news, this should give you some insight into my writing/editing/revising process. Which is a little bit scatterbrained and problematic, yes, but I have no regrets.

And now, as a reward for being awesome, I am going to give you some Pariah.

Share This Story

17
comments

Wow, you've put a lot of work into Pariah! I really look forward to reading the first chapter. The GIFs spoke to my soul this time, and that's just something that is hard to accept sometimes. I need to go work on my WIP... Blah....

A CHAPTER. WE GET A CHAPTER. *flails* I honestly cannot anymore. *reads it immediately* *returns from reading it* I need more. Now. O_O IT WAS SO GOOD. Publish this book as soon as you finish edits because oh my gosh I love it so much. I already adore Sachi so much.

On another hand, I still expect that post that you were going to have on Saturday. :P On yet another hand, Falling Skies reruns are essential to surviving edits. Because Falling Skies is amazing.

ANYHOW. I simply cannot wait to see your #WatchMeWrite now, and Sachi and Elias *flails a little more* Also the GIFs are SUPER accurate. I'm still only on the fourth draft of WIP, but I need more and more help with each draft.

P.S.: There's this really long space between the end of your post and the datestamp and stuff. Is that a secret code, or Blogger messing up?

P.P.S.: I know I scream this every time you post about Pariah, but I would love to beta-read this for you. Or just generally read it. Or just breathe it in.

I have heard you talk about Pariah and maybe have read a few snippets. But- I didn't not realize to the full extent what it was about. That whole blurb thing in bold letters just snatched my attention. It sounds fantastic!

YAY! This is my favorite post of yours this week. Wow! Six drafts is a ton of graphs, but I think Pariah is fabulous for it. When I first started editing one of my WIPs, I thought it would only need a second draft as well, but umm...HAHAHAHAHA NO. Editing never seems to end. Also, I get distracted by shiny new ideas in whole different genres. For example, right now I have this historical fiction idea (that's gonna require a ton of research) that is practically screaming at me to write it, even though I'm writing sci-fi right now. So far my revising method has been a mashup of doing minor edits for the second draft and then rewriting my whole novel from scratch for the third draft, so it's very crazy. When you say drafts do you mean that you rewrite the whole thing or that it's kind of like a run through of edits? Also, that first chapter is AMAZING.

*runs wildly for Wattpad**pauses**finishes comment here*OKAY BUT I LIKE YOUR DRAFTING PROCESS. And by "like", I mean "I RELATE". *nods* Although I've only done that many drafts (erm, probably more actually, that's how terrible the book was) about once...the rest of my books I basically write and then let moulder because they're too crazy or just weird or I have no idea what the heck is going on in them. Okay now I'm going to read that chapter.

The first chapter of Pariah was enchanting! I already love your characters (hopefully nothing terrible will happen to them... right?). Thanks for the sneak peak :P Also, I know many people have already said this, and I'm not quite certain how it all works, but I would love to beta read for you. In other words, I simply must find out what happens to these lovely characters! :) -Bailey